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Introduction: Home health care (HHC) workers face a high prevalence of health challenges, including musculoskeletal pain, depressive symptoms and cardiovascular diseases. These challenges are closely linked to a demanding physical and psychosocial work environment that contributes to elevated rates of sickness absence and early retirement. At the same time, demographic changes, including an aging population, are intensifying the shortage of HHC workers. Consequently, interventions to maintain a robust and healthy HHC workforce is highly needed. A new organizational model inspired by the pioneering healthcare organization Buurtzorg is being widely implemented in Danish HHC. The model is based on self-governing teams and aims to enhance the quality of care achieved through greater autonomy, collaboration and shared decision-making among HHC workers. Self-governing teams are increasingly considered the future in Danish HHC, however, the model does not explicitly address the perspective of maintaining or improving the workers’ health. This leaves a knowledge gap on the strategies that both align with the self-governing structure and addresses the physical and mental health challenges within the sector.

The aim of this study is to develop a Goldilocks Work (GW) intervention in HHC organized in a self-governing structure focusing on how work can be organized to strengthen the health of HHC workers.

Methods: Due to the complexity of designing and implementing workplace interventions that are both context-sensitive and sustainable, the intervention will be developed inspired by the three-stage framework for developing complex health interventions described by Hawkins et al. This framework emphasizes a systematic, iterative process to ensure interventions are grounded in evidence, stakeholder needs, and are practically feasible. The development process will also draw on key actions for developing interventions described by O’Cathain et al.

Results: The development of the GW intervention will result in a structured workplace intervention, tailored to the needs and context of HHC workers organized into self-governing teams. The feasibility of the developed intervention will be evaluated later this year among HHC workers organized into self-governing teams. At the PREMUS conference, the development process and the resulting content of the intervention will be presented.

Discussion: This development process contributes knowledge about the design of a context-specific GW intervention in a HHC setting. Using the three-stage framework by Hawkins et al. ensures that the content is not only theoretically grounded but also relevant and feasible for the workers. The participatory approach increases the likelihood of long-term implementation and ownership among the workers, which is crucial for the sustainability of the intervention.

Conclusion: By applying a systematic and transparent approach, the development process aims to ensure that the intervention is contextually relevant, well-aligned with practices, and feasible to implement. This foundation is essential for the subsequent feasibility trial, which will assess how the intervention functions in a real-world setting.